


And therein lies the issue

by spacebuns12



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - You've Got Mail Fusion, Co-workers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends Online / Enemies Offline, Humor, Journalism, Mutual Pining, Pen Pals, Romance, Slow Burn, Texting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-28 05:26:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebuns12/pseuds/spacebuns12
Summary: ScavengerGirl and KyloR are anonymous text pals that know nothing about each other personal lives.They are Rey Niima, chief editor at The Republic magazine and prodigy journalist, and Benjamin Solo, expert in social media and a ruthless critic of Niima's work. In real life, they absolutely loathe each other.Did I forget anything? Oh, yes.Benjamin Solo is the new chief editor at The Republic online.





	And therein lies the issue

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I'm a huge fan of You've got Mail (the best rom-com ever with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks) and one day I was watching it for the trillionth time and knew I had to write a reylo fic. And, well, what a better universe than the one I'm on, right? I'm a journalist so... Yeah, no need to say I'm having a blast writing it and hope you guys like it too!
> 
> But hey: it's inspired on You've got Mail, not based on every single word/fact of the movie. So feel free (maybe obligated) to watch it! 
> 
> Don't forget to comment, give kudos and subscribe if you like it! Also, follow me on twitter or tumblr (@spacebuns12)!
> 
> PS: endless thanks (as usual) to my wonderful beta and bestie @Gaia_707!!

**_ScavengerGirl:_ ** _have you ever woke up with this good feeling, like today is_ the _day? it may be the spring, but something tells me there's more to it_

 **_KyloR:_ ** _really? should we trust your guts and finally meet today?_

 **_ScavengerGirl:_ ** _what if we already met? omg, what if you're that stupid lame guy from my school that kept harassing everyone?_

 **_KyloR:_ ** _he doesn’t really sounds like someone you would keep a conversation with… but now i’m considering the probability of you being a stalker that pretended to get my number wrong just so you could start a conversation_

 **_ScavengerGirl:_ ** _wow, are you famous? if that was the case, apparently it worked_

 **_KyloR:_ ** _no, not famous, but yeah, it did. guess I’m not so selective about the people I maintain conversations with_

 **_KyloR:_ ** _ps: I wasn't kidding about meeting, you know._

Rey bit the inside of her cheek. Setting a date to meet someone she only talked to online was really… Problematic. What if he was a freak, a psycho, a crazy psycho - did that make sense? -, anyway. Dangerous. Besides… what if it spoiled the image she already built of him? This guy with particular humor that could talk and argue about pretty much everything and that had been there for here when… Well, sometimes when no one was…

 **_KyloR:_ ** _I’m not a psycho, even though that’s what a psycho would say_

 **_ScavengerGirl:_ ** _this wasn't very encouraging, you know. but yeah, that'd be nice. maybe soon?_

 **_KyloR:_ ** _ouch. ditching me in a sweet vague way_

 **_KyloR:_ ** _still not intimidated. you know I can get whatever i want, even that requires patience and a few years_

 **_ScavengerGirl:_ ** _am considering saving your name as DramaQueen_

 ** _KyloR:_** _a rose by any other name would smell as sweet_

"Morning! What's your order?", the attendant asked, interrupting Rey's laugh at the obviously ironic message. Kylo - or whatever his name truly was - was the most practical and rational person she ever met, or talked to at least. Romeo and Juliet were definitely too sugary for him.

"Cold brew vanilla venti, please!", she ordered, still smiling. After paying, she sat on one vague stall to wait for her giant coffee.

 **_ScavengerGirl:_ ** _or Juliet Capulet_

 **_ScavengerGirl:_ ** _didn’t take you as a romeo + juliet fan_

 **_KyloR:_ ** _not really. but_ _can’t deny I agree that violent delights have violent ends_

 **_ScavengerGirl:_ ** _jeez you_ are _a drama queen_

 **_KyloR:_ ** _not dramatic: pragmatic_

Before she could answer the text, another conversation popped on her screen.

 **_Finn:_ ** _Rey, have you seen this article about the rep?_

You may say Finn was her best friend, even though she was his boss. Both of them worked on The Republic, a magazine where she was Chief Editor for over a year and where she spent almost her entire career so far - five proud years to be precise. Their friendship started on college, but life - and work - ended up bringing them together again. The rest is history.

 **_Rey:_ ** _nops, who wrote it?_

 **_Finn:_ ** _benjamin jerk solo_

 **_Rey:_ ** _how bad is it?_

 **_Finn:_ ** _bad. just see it for yourself…_

The woman opened the link feeling the excitement of before vanishing slowly. Benjamin Solo was a ruthless journalist, specially when it came to The Republic, which, by the way, was founded by _his_ mother. Obviously he had some seriously mom issues or daddy issues, anyway. He had issues. Serious ones.

 

**_Republic: The Titanic of our time_ **

_Benjamin Solo_

_There is no denying: newspapers, magazines, books and all kinds of printed materials are doomed. The world breaths in another frequency, in which speed overlaps length and information has to be direct. Raw, maybe, if not ruthless._

_Extensive reports are becoming a waste of time in a world where news are given in Instagram's 15 seconds stories or 280 characters of a tweet. Enough with the flourish and vanity of journalists that insist on writing reports of five thousand words just so they can fulfill their frustrated career as writers. Journalism is about uncovering the news, informing the public, and today that means being fast and precise._

_That being said, it's quite ironic that some vehicles prefer to go down in an outdated kind of journalism instead of welcoming the 21th century. The Republic, in my opinion, is the main example of a magazine that had its golden era around the 80s, but never overcame that time and chooses, in every single edition, to ignore what's inevitable: less clients by the second, a business more and more expensive and - worse - debts accumulating daily._

_As captain of this true Titanic is Rey Niima, journalist of 27 years old that has had a promising career - at least so far. Even though Ms. Niima tried to innovate since taking over, her naivety and lack of experience leading a magazine will have a high price to pay. After all, the numbers don't lie and if a miracle doesn't happen, The Republic will soon succumb and its captain with it._

_[...]_

 

"What an absolute jerk”, Rey cursed under her breath. She didn't have to finish the article to know its message: she was the scapegoat of the time, probably massacred by the sensationalist and attention seeker of Benjamin Solo, journalist that apparently thrown his degree in the garbage or sold it with his soul. If he ever had one.

Jerk.

"Rachel!", the Starbucks attendant called out and as everyone was staring at her, she imagined he's been calling for sometime. Rey put her phone away and stepped forward.

"Sorry, cold brew vanilla?", she asked to the attendant.

"Yeah!", he gave her the larger cup the store offered and rolled her eyes at the Rachel and smiley face written on it. What was the problem with the name Rey, after all? Was it so hard to get? Besides, why did Finn ruin her morning sending her that hideous article? Seriously, that happy feeling of earlier just went down the toilet - a place she would gladly throw this shitty article if it wasn't inside her phone.

Lost in thought, she turned abruptly, bumping on the man at her side, that by the looks held an american coffee and a newspaper, at least that was the first things she saw, as the man was incredibly tall. She looked up to apologize and came across deep brown eyes, full lips, a wavy black hair pulled back by glasses and a jeans shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Benjamin Solo _who_?

"Oh, I'm so sorry!", she said, blushing. When was the last time she had an immediate crush on someone? High school?

"No problem, didn't even spill my coffee", he gave a side smile.

"That definitely requires some great balancing skills, which I really don't have, obviously", she smiled back at him and chewed the inside of her cheek. He had this curious look, like he was trying to figure out if he knew her or something. Before it could get awkward - or more than already was -, she decided to try going for a chat. It wasn't as if she was hitting on him… right? "Hm, what are you reading?", Rey pointed to the newspaper.

The question seemed to have caught him off guard. He looked at the newspaper as if a little embarrassed and cleared his throat.

"Oh, just trying to get some updates about the world", he justified vaguely.

"Really?", she asked a little skeptical. Good looking and charming guys usually weren't very smart - or in tune with the world, anyway. Not the last ones she dated, at least. "What do you think about the political crisis in Naboo?"

"You mean the almost inevitable civil war because of the political crisis between the Gungans and Nabooians?", he said, she nodded challengingly. "Well, it's complicated. I understand colonization isn't exactly fair, but it happened and it was a long time ago. Basically, Gungans should just accept the government instead of rebelling against it."

"But they have a whole other culture, language and identity! Don't you think they own the right to want to have a separated State?", she questioned already preparing for a debate.

"If they do, it'll backfire: their economy will be a complete mess and not the thriving country full of jobs and business they are used to", he stood his ground, with one eyebrow raised and an amusement glow in his eyes.

"You can't say that for sure. Their claims are stronger in key cities, where economy is actually very structured and promising and -", Rey got interrupted by her phone, that buzzed a new message. She looked at the screen and saw a message from Finn on the editor's group:

 **_Finn:_ ** _Where r u? huge meeting with whole company in 10 min, remember? Hurry!!_

"And I'll have to go", she said, upset. What a bad timing! "Well, glad to know _some_ people still are interested on what's going on in the world, by the way. It's really getting harder to find them", she smiled at him.

"Still don't really agree with you, but my duty also calls. Nice meeting you… Rachel?", he asked, reading her cup.

"Oh, no, they always get it wrong. It's Rey. Rey Niima", she said. "Nice meeting you..?"

"Ben!", he said fast and looking very bewildered all of a sudden. Ben? What kind of answer was that? "See you around", he murmured, forcing a smile, and was gone before she could even ask him his last name.

Her phone buzzed.

 **_Rose:_ ** _get your butt in here! big announcement here on the 2 floor_

 **_Finn:_ ** _red alert! it's probably bad: there's food (saving you some muffins)!_

 **_Poe:_ ** _the coffee's good too… bad bad sign_

She shook her head. Even though the second floor was where the writing department - and some designers - stayed and therefore the biggest space, the trio (Finn, Rose, and Poe) was freaking out with a possible mass demission for months already. So what the second floor was also used for big announcements sometimes? It didn't mean today was happening something like that. Or that it was going to be necessarily bad.

Rey rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee. Calm above all, she kept mentalizing as she crossed the street. After all, if she didn't calm them, no one would.

For her surprise, the second floor was indeed full. The whole company seemed to be squeezed in there. After pushing and making way through three programmers laughing at some intern joke, the people of the commercial team and a lost looking intern, she finally got to her table. Rey always defended that chief editors should stay among the writing team and not in a private room. Now, though, she would _love_ some space.

"Rey!", she heard from behind. Rose, Finn and Poe emerged from the crowd with their hands full of food. That's why she loved her team. So. Fucking. Much.

"Free food!", Finn cheered, giving her a small sandwich and two chocolate muffins.

"Isn't that too much?", Poe asked, receiving shocked expressions from Rey and Finn.

"Not everyone can live in a protein based diet, Mister Shredded", Rey said, mouth half full of muffin - she already swallowed the sandwich -, as Poe rolled his eyes giving up on the argument. "So, has anyone of you, my dear colleagues, put on use your journalistics abilities to find out what's going on?"

"Obviously!", Rose said, finishing a bite of her muffin. "Wow, this muffin is so good! Where did they order from?"

"Focus, Rose!", Rey asked, laughing. It actually was really good.

"Ok, sorry! So… Apparently Star received a huge investment, we don't know the values yet, and they will announce how it will be distributed", she summarized.

Star Networks was the larger communication group of Coruscant, which meant it was quite important in a global scale. A few years ago, when the journalistic crisis started to affect The Republic, Star bought the magazine, but never changed its core content: big reports and stories carefully written and accurate. It was wonderful, but Rey knew their days were counted if they couldn't find a way to monetize.

She had to admit the jerk Solo had a point. Fuck it. Fuck him.

What worried her was why that investment was so important for The Republic. Obviously, it was going to affect the magazine somehow, that's why everyone involved on the project was squeezed on the second floor. But she doubted it was going straight to the existing non profitable business.

"Looks like it's going to start", Rey listened Rose saying and turned to the improvised presentation spot the big bosses arranged - a projected screen and a little space apart from the crowd. The four editors gave up on seeing anything and just leaned on Rey's desk, eating in silence and trying to listen.

"Good morning, everyone!", said Amilyn Holdo, the executive editor and basically everyone's boss. It was such a relief when Amilyn did the announcements: she went straight to it, no windings or wild unnecessary explanations. "We have some exciting news! As you may know, Star recently received an investment and the first business the board chose to invest was The Republic. So first of all: congratulations to everyone! This shows that we are definitely going on the right direction!", her smile was broad and Rey forced a weakly smile. God, and she thought she was the dreamer around here.

"Well, now you may ask: how will this investment affect us? Our goal is to reach even more readers, after all our work is damn good and the whole world deserves to read some quality journalism", everyone cheered. Yeah, fuck Benjamin Solo! "To do that, part of the investment will be destined to new spots on the website team, mainly front and backend developers, and web designers!", the designers and programmers crews celebrated and everyone clapped excited.

"But mainly, we want to build an even stronger content team", she said, her smiling growing wider as her eyes found Rey in the middle of the crowd. "As everyone knows, our prodigy chief editor is doing an excellent job", as if it wasn't enough everyone looking at her, Finn screamed a 'you go, girl!'. She smiled, but braced herself for the impact: she learned that too many compliments were a common bumper for bad news. "And even though she's been balancing practically two content teams, the offline and the online, we understand it's time to give her a little break to focus on the printed magazine."

Well, it wasn't bad news. She really were overwhelmed lately, having to coordinate a considerable number of people working in different formats - big reports, hard news, tweets, photos on Instagram… - and Amilyn always knew her true passion was the printed magazine.

"So, to lead The Republic online and join forces with Rey, we'd like to welcome the expert in social medias and former 'republican', Benjamin Solo!", Amilyn said, stepping back and clapping to someone behind her. Obviously, everyone started to clap as well, but the whispers were audible and all eyes were on Rey's reaction. Apparently, everyone read the article the jerk wrote.

"Holy shit, she can't be serious!", Poe said between his teeth and giving the less motivated claps Rey has ever seen.

Ok, she wouldn't freak out. She _couldn't_ freak out. Rey remembered Leia Organa, her former brilliant boss and founder of The Republic, and her unwavering beliefs and grace. Rey wasn’t going to give in, she was the Chief Editor and she would fight for what she believed. She took a deep breath and smiled to Amilyn, clapping to the fucking jerk she didn't have the chance to see as her vision was quite blocked by the sea of people.

There was a tension in the air and she decided to put an end to it. She was the bigger person. She didn't hide behind hateful articles, Rey kept telling herself as she stood up and walked to the improvised presentation spot as people cleared her way.

But the smile on her face started to sink as she got closer... The guy beside Amilyn was huge. His jeans sleeves were still rolled up to his elbows, his wavy black hair a little messier, the glasses that held them on place earlier were hanging on his neckline - with one button opened, by the way. His now cold brown eyes met hers and she reinforced her fake smile - that by now were probably the ugliest and most hateful someone ever gave - , extending her hand in his direction.

"Welcome to the team, _Ben_."

**Author's Note:**

> Ben, KyloR, Rey, ScavangerGirl... Oh, yeah, brace yourselves because it only gets worse (and funnier maybe?).
> 
> So, did you like it? How do you think this will work out?  
> Give kudos, comment and let me know what you think!!


End file.
